Fun summer reading

Mathur's Sept. 1999 deposition

While writing the blog below ("Let there be wooage," earlier this morning), I added something to the archive. It is a transcript of RAGHU MATHUR's famous deposition in connection with my First Amendment lawsuit.

The deposition, which features my attorney (Carol Sobel), the district's attorney (Dave Larsen), and, of course, Mathur, is very long, but I've added section headings, so you can skip around (see below).

Those who know or know of Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur will, I believe, be amused by his remarks.

Some highlights:

• Raghu explains that he keeps what amount to secret files on IVC faculty. According to the Ed Code, the district must maintain a single file per employee, the contents of which are to made clear to the employee. Mathur acknowledges that he keeps yet another file--the contents of which, evidently, are not disclosed.

• Raghu claims to have received about a dozen threats--letters, emails, voicemail--(as per usual, he plays the "race" card) stretching back to about 1990.

Under aggressive questioning, he acknowledges that he has no documentation of these alleged "threats." Evidently, he has chosen to keep nothing.

But Mathur is a notorious liar. More likely, he just made this all up.

• Raghu names four faculty who, he charges, have been hostile to him and to whom he attributes the "threats." Included among them: Kate Clark (who subsequently served as the State Academic Senate President), Bob Deegan, and Pam Deegan (both respected executive administrators now working in other community college districts).

Raghu's efforts to explain why he views these persons as threatening or how he knows that they are source of threats are often hilarious. He appears to be fond of wild non sequiturs.

• In the course of the deposition, it becomes clear that Mathur is in the habit of making groundless assumptions about his critics.

• At one point, Mathur describes a "threat" he received over the phone; it had, he says, a mysterious "altered" voice!

Mathur's Sept. 1999 deposition

Sections:

1. It begins
2. Renew my subscription to this offensive newsletter
3. Shoe fittage
4. The testimony was MAIM
5. Mathurian logic
6. He meant to do harm to my body
7. “Objective independent” thinking
8. Enemies list: a love story
9. The literary insights of the Three Stooges
10. The curious case of professor R
11. Evidence, please
12. Properly dealing with student complaints
13. The “whore” rumor
14. Mathur’s secret files
15. Raghu’s ever-changing “threats” story
16. Again with the non sequiturs
17. The “case” against Bob Deegan
18. The “case” against Kate Clark
19. Pam’s “hostility”
20. It’s racist if I say it is
21. The mysterious “altered” voice
22. Alleged anti-Asian email
23. My life is in danger
24. “Evidence,” Raghu style
25. Mathur’s inexplicable failure to document the alleged “threats”
26. Seven out of a thousands
27. Mathur violates the contract again
28. Tempers flare; Carol kicks butt

Let there be wooage!

This morning's OC Register (School district kept tabs on parents) includes a story about alleged Nixonian shenanigans by the superintendent of the Capistrano School District.

Did I say "Nixonian"? Sorry, I meant Mathurian.

Here are some excerpts:

School district kept tabs on parents

Capistrano Unified compiled list of recall proponents. Parents are upset – one calls it 'Nixonish' – and a trustee vows an inquiry.

By SAM MILLER and TONY SAAVEDRA

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – The Capistrano Unified School District kept lists of 150 families who supported last year's board recall campaign, detailing such personal information as where their children went to school, according to documents obtained by The Orange County Register.

The district also received inside information on the effort to oust board members from an informant with access to the recall campaign, documents show.

Three spreadsheets list the names of parents, teachers and activists who were in contact with the recall campaign as well as the neighborhoods in which they live, the schools where they teach and their community affiliations. One couple is described in the spreadsheets as "NIMBY." Another woman is described as "outspoken."

David Smollar, the district's former chief of communications, said he saw copies of the spreadsheets stored in the office of Superintendent James Fleming, who he says directed him to keep them secret last spring despite a public-records request by recall supporters.

"He ordered me not to include those," said Smollar, who resigned in May. "He just said, 'I can't do it, it would be too embarrassing.' "

Fleming, in an interview, said he had not seen or heard of the lists.

"It doesn't sound familiar, like anything I know about at all," said Fleming, describing Smollar as a "disgruntled" ex-employee who "left not on the best of circumstances."

This brings back memories, boy. Like the time that then-IVC President Raghu Mathur was deposed (Mathur's deposition, September 28, 1999), compelling him to reveal that he kept a special secret file on yours truly in his office, in violation of district policies and the Ed Code. There is supposed to be one personnel file per employee, and it is kept at the district, where it is available for viewing.

But, as we all know by now, the rules don't apply to Raghu.

Or the time Mathur offered the newly-appointed President of IVC (Dan Larios: this was back in 1994) a list of faculty trouble-makers to keep tabs on. (Mathur's "enemies list")

Or the time (summer '97) Mathur assured IVC faculty that there would be no move to eliminate the college's "chair" model over the summer. In fact, as he was offering assurances, he had already instructed his VPI to begin work on designing the replacement "dean" model. The re-org, which followed the VPI's design exactly, occurred within weeks of the assurances.

Maybe we could encourage the Capistrano people to try to woo Mathur away from us! He seems to be their kinda guy.

Let there by wooage!